Leek
name, noun ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A vegetable of variety Allium ampeloprasum, having edible leaves and an onion-like bulb but with a milder flavour than the onion.
- 2 related to onions; white cylindrical bulb and flat dark-green leaves wordnet
- 3 Any of several species of Allium, broadly resembling the domesticated plant in appearance in the wild.
- 4 plant having a large slender white bulb and flat overlapping dark green leaves; used in cooking; believed derived from the wild Allium ampeloprasum wordnet
- 1 A town and civil parish with a town council in Staffordshire Moorlands district, Staffordshire, England (OS grid ref SJ9856).
- 2 A village and former municipality in Groningen province, Netherlands.
- 3 A surname.
Example
More examples"I do believe it's called a leek."
Etymology
From Middle English leke, leek, lek, from Old English lēac (“a garden herb, leek, onion, garlic”), from Proto-West Germanic *lauk, from Proto-Germanic *lauką *laukaz (“leek, onion”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewg- (“to bend”). Cognate with Dutch look (“garlic, leek”), German Low German Look (“leek”), German Lauch (“leek, allium”), Danish løg (“onion”), Swedish lök (“onion”), Icelandic laukur (“onion, leek, garlic”). See garlic.
Perhaps of pre-Anglo-Saxon (non-Old English) origin and instead from Celtic; compare Welsh llech and Irish leac (“stone”), both from Proto-Celtic *ɸlikkā. Recorded as Lec in 1086 (DB).
Related phrases
More for "leek"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.